Refuting the Standard Arguments Against Communism and for Capitalism

Yes, the irredeemably horrible nature of capitalism has been stated through the ages.

The problem is finding something better.

We need to work on making the most of capitalism - at least until some hugely better system starts proving itself somewhere.

"precarize the majority" - cool! But, you can't make a person precarious.

 

I posted a website dedicated to finding just such a system - http://thenextsystem.org/new-systems-possibilities-and-proposals/

These are reputable, intelligent, serious people with plenty of cred. Richard Wolff was highly educated as an economist at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And he has many, many educational videos on his ideas and analysis to be watched by any serious person. Similarly for many of the others in the list. So no one has any excuse for claiming we need to keep working on a system that is dying and cannot deliver any longer.

 

Conclusion: Although we, the Communist loving leftest Marxists despise wealth generated by high oil prices, we recognize such evil in order that we have some base of income to tax into oblivion as we redistribute income to people of our choosing, based on our ideological preferences.

 

I don't agree.

I'm not ready to switch America to an unproven paper model.

I haven't read all of that, obviously. Perhaps there are ideas on how we can improve what we have - maybe even ideas that would take us toward a system that is more different than capitalism with fixes like we have.

 

Ok well let's go theoretical then, cuz you seem to love pointing at the applications as flawed forms of communism.

Now, depending on your form of communism, the government involvement is different. However, you generally agree that social class should no longer exist and that everyone should be able to provide for everyone (from each according to his ability to each according to his need).

So the issue with this is the necessity of an elite. Whether this be a monarch, an "aristocracy of talent (Mr. Alexander Hamilton)", or a racial supremacy, we thrive on an elite. We need an elite. Now, whether or not you know it, there is an elite class even in your society that you are perfectly content with having. Today, it's the American "aristocracy of talent". As in, the educated. Those who are educated get better jobs and get more money: capitalism at its finest. Of course, this is somewhat changing. But the fact remains this elite exists and you are a part of keeping it alive. You don't have an issue with an elite if you have a chance at becoming part of that elite. If it's easy enough to attain, then you're completely fine with it.

So why do we need this elite? Quite simply because we need a group of people that other people want to be like. And this group motivates competition which motives society. Capitalism at its finest.

Now, communism destroys elite. But there will always be an elite, which contradicts classlessness. For example, Soviet Russia. I know you disapprove of this labeled as communist, but for argument's sake, I'm using it as an example. Ideally, communism wouldn't have a State. Because that would be an elite. But you need to have someone keeping the order. But how can someone tell someone else what to do if they are the same social class as them? Well, supreme leader of course. So here we have the communist contradiction. This is why communism can't work. Because we need government but government is so contradictory to communist ideals. But say we do achieve Stateless society. We still have to worry about this aristocracy of talent. Doctors, for example. We value the job of a doctor more than that of a janitor. Of course both are necessary, (need). But one has greater ability than the other (doctor). We thus value the doctor more. Well now you've made a social class from nothing. Destroying the fabric of communism.

Sorry, but capitalists over 9000, communists 0.

 

Neither am I.

Such exploration is what that website is for.

 

If you see a government, you're not looking at communism BY DEFINITION.

Try again.

 

"If you find a dog in sore straits, and you take it in, protect it, feed it and generally make it prosperous, that dog will not bite you...In this lies the chief difference between a dog and a man." Mark Twain

 

I see that as a dodge.

It's about like denying our capitalism.

The government does have to be involved.

Also, I really do not believe that any system can exist in some ideologically pure form.

 

Didn't I reply to this objection in the AMA thread, back when I was a communist?

 

But there has never been even a mix of communism and anything else. Capitalism was mixed with feudalism in the beginning. Socialism has been mixed with capitalism in the beginning. But we haven't seen even the beginning of communism so it cannot be found in any mixed form because it doesn't exist at all.

Now, what is the definition of communism? Can you say? Doesn't seem so. So I'll tell you again: it is a society in which there is no class distinction and there is no state apparatus. So how can a society that has a state structure be mixed with one that has no state structure in the same society?

You're not thinking.

 

That is total BS - you don't even know what capitalism is.

Capitalism - Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets.

Capitalism requires individual liberty and natural rights, and a government which operates at the discretion of the people.

Go to school. Not only do you live in a fantasy land, you don't have any idea what you are talking about.

 

That is total BS - you don't even know what capitalism is. And since you don't know you have to resort to personal attacks, hoping someone will be intimidated.

Your definition is the idealized textbook version. The reality is unrecognizable to you.

Capitalism cannot survive with real democracy. And it does best when there is only a regulated version of liberty. Go read my post to you, #572, and maybe you will recognize the reality.

Do you want to argue democracy? The worker works 5 days a week, all day, and he does what he is told. The boss or Board decides what to produce, how to produce it, when to produce it, where to produce it, and what to do with the profits. And he keeps most of it. You don't get to participate in your own life's activity during that time. You have no say. You have no democracy. Capitalism cannot survive democratically.

And you owe Charles an apology for your personal attack.

 

Yes, as Kode has pointed out, you're merely spouting trite free-market fundamentalist rhetoric. The simple and harsh reality of actually-existing capitalism is that it's a system in which wolfish capitalists and capitalist firms arrogate control of the means of production, and control an excessive amount of economic wealth and economic and political power, which of course they use to constitute themselves as a dominant class in a position to promote its own class interests and to trample the interests and dignity of the working class; which they use to reduce the majority of allegedly free citizens of our democracy to the status of wage slaves; which they use to corrupt and subvert our democracy and to a great extent disenfranchise the little guy/gal; which, in short, they use to make a lie of the vaunted freedom and "self-ownership" supposedly accorded to human beings by the capitalist system. At any rate, you seem to be blissfully ignorant of all of the imperfect competition that your beautiful capitalists engage in, which makes a fiction of the competitive markets that you tout. And you seem to be equally unconscionably unaware of, or unbothered by the socially and ecologically destructive, the downright sociopathic behavior that capitalists are driven to by the imperative to accumulate capital. Your image of capitalism is indeed quite dangerously naive.

 

Look at the Communist states to date. Sure, there were some which weren't unacceptably totalitarian - the Paris Commune comes to mind. But for the most part they have soon devolved into totalitarian (*)(*)(*)(*)holes, and none have survived long.

Now, you might say that these aren't truly representative of Communism. True, but neither are any of these states we currently have truly Capitalist. The notion that anyone really owns anything in our society is absurd. Ownership implies a right of transfer without obstruction, which we do not have. It's more of a conditional lease arrangement with the state.

The issue as I see it is that the reality of power in society isn't especially conducive to collective ownership of production. You need to apply a lot of force to protect this principle, which requires a large state. A state which is very protective of its ideals, and necessarily oppressive of those in opposition. Partisans tend to take it over. Either you have a large state to protect your system, which soon devolves into totliatarianism, or you have a small state which fails to protect it, and your system is promptly destroyed.

Ask Trotsky, he knows what I'm talking about.

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Unfortunately, reality is not always in agreement with the theoretically ethical. You need a stable power structure, or it's all for nothing. Communism for the most part ignores this. So does Capitalism, if you take it to the extremes most Communists do. Ask the anarcho-capitalists.

Perhaps a "live and let live" system is preferable? A system of small independent territories with competing political systems.

 

Did you even read the rest of it? I specifically stated true communism doesn't have a State. But someone needs to keep the order. But if you don't have any class, who gives anyone the authority to do anything?

 

Yea. You said this:

In that case [being the elite], that would still exist in communism in the sense of some people having the opportunity to play a managing role in certain tasks and some people being thought of as the "best" at a certain thing. What would not exist in communism is the state, or any sort of coercive, permanent hierarchy.

My point is that those permanent hierarchies will start existing by nature. And that's a huge contradiction with the communist ideal. Now, of course, it would work fine if you live in an 18th style economy pre-mercantilism style. So like, back when the economy was post-feudal but not yet into the enlightenment; before capitalism (Adam Smith) but after the fall of the monarchy. But not in a modern economy.

 

That's an oxymoron. Do you understand that you contradict yourself here?

The rest is pointless due to this huge error.

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These are questions no one can answer because no one has seen a communist country. It's all theory, so nothing definite of this sort can be said about it. Have fun speculating on a theoretical result.

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No one knows that.

 

I am well aware that you think your ideology is stateless. I emphatically disagree, just as you probably disagree that anarcho-Capitalism is stateless.

Try not to harm yourself when dismounting from that extremely tall horse.

 

I "THINK" my "ideology is stateless"??? Do you have knowledge of a case in which it exists with a state apparatus?

How can you disagree with the one and only source of the theory of communism??? Are you a political theory genius? If so, are you published and recognized?

You would do far better to be debating socialism, low rider. Because actual efforts at developing a socialist society exist and progress has been made with lessons learned. Arguing a theory that has never been attempted is silly. It's your opinion against Marx's theory. Nothing more.

 

Well, to paraphrase Jefferson, the social structures of a communist form of society, which would replace a state and ruling class, would be instituted among Men and Women, and derive their just powers from the consent of the people.

 

Nothing survives with real democracy (in the sense that everyone votes, and popular elections select all the politicians). That was known since the 1500's.

You and Charles are ignorant of history, ignorant of sociology, and ignorant of the basic definitions of the political systems you try to talk about.

Go to school. A real school. Get educated.

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read post 597

 

So all you can think of as "real democracy" is a system in which "everyone votes"? LOL!!!

Why? You're the one saying all the ignorant things. And now you have a STRING of them! LOL! If you really knew you had a good argument you wouldn't have to rely on such personal attacks in hope of intimidating us into silence!

 

Such as The Ludwig von Mises Institute?

 

I simply respond at the level of the audience. If you don't understand the most basic concepts, then there is nothing to say except to advise you to get an education.